Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer)

by Hechtl, Chris

  “You sure did,” she said wrinkling her nose.

  “I had to go to three recruiters too, the first had filled his quota for the quarter and was trying to bank me for later.”

  “Bank you?” she asked, confused.

  “Someone who is definitely in, but you want to wait so they count for your next quota,” he looked disgusted.

  “Um...”

  “Quota; a recruiter is required to recruit a certain number of people each month. So by banking someone, by putting them off until you need them you get to keep your record clean.”

  She sighed shaking her head. “It's not that complicated once you see it in action. But anyway, I ended up getting in with someone who was one shy of quota. She let me in under protest,” he grimaced again.

  “I spent three months in boot and basic training, three more months of advanced training, learning everything I already knew. It was the most boring time of my life. Getting the basic enlisted implants sucked too. They yanked out the ones I had, since it was civilian grade.” She winced at his grimace of familiar pain.

  “I was shit on from the first day, not just the usual hazing to see if you can hack it, but also because of that black mark. It took two cruises before I was out from under that cloud, two years,” he sighed shaking his head.

  “So how did you become an officer?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Chief engineer Sherman took a long hard look at my record when I signed on to the Derringer. He noted the mark, started to do the usual lecture on it, but stopped when he noticed the captain who reported it.” He smiled a little. “It seems he had a third cousin who had experienced the same problem from captain Bligh. He took a longer look into my service history, then into my training,” he snorted.

  “I'd kept up on classes despite being in the doghouse. I'd finished my third masters and a doctorate on engineering and was well on my way to a second,” he said, shaking his head. “I'd about given up on a naval career, I had managed to convince myself I hadn't wanted it in the first place. What I had wanted was my original dream, a chief engineer's berth.”

  “So you were going to get out of the navy?” she asked amused.

  “Yeah.”

  “How would history have turned out had that happened?” Sprite asked. He shrugged.

  “Glad we didn't have to find out,” April said with a smile. “Go on, you were saying?”

  “Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “He checked into my hobbies and saw that I was doing a lot of studying and design work. When he asked why I wasn't an officer, I told him I was blackballed. He sicked the bosun on me and the exec.”

  He snorted. “They even got the ship AI to wake me up in the middle of the night to ask stupid engineering and command questions once or twice a week. I would answer them, then explain the procedures step by step. When a CPO was reassigned to another posting they stuck me in his slot. The crew thought I'd be above my head and crying for help but I'd done it all before. By that time the crew knew I knew what I was doing.” He laughs. “Even some of them were in on the testing after a while.”

  She smiled politely at that.

  “When we had an impeller failure, I was near and pulled four injured crew out and to safety before the hull breach widened despite the fact that I was injured myself. I even refused medical treatment to help the DCC crew contain the damage. The skipper gave me a commendation and a brevet promotion for initiative.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. After that he got into the act. I started getting peppered with tactical problems on my off time as homework. At first I didn't know that they were from the academy manual. The OCS application tests,” he said shaking his head.

  “But eventually you figured it out?” she asked. He nodded.

  “See, a crew is constantly training. We're always running sims, taking classes, or doing a project or rebuild or something. It's not just to keep busy, it's to keep our skills up and to keep from going stir crazy.”

  “After being in this ship I can believe it. I wish they'd do something here,” April said dryly.

  “You're a passenger, you normally don't count. You can take classes, and the emergency drills, but the rest is for the crew. They need to keep sharp at all times.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  He snorted. “Anyway, By the time we got back in port the skipper, exec, and chief engineer had all endorsed my 20-03c to be mustanged in OCS. I felt shanghaied all over again. I told the bosun I just wanted to play with my spanners, she just laughed and laughed.” He shook his head smiling a little. “First time I'd even heard her laugh. Up until then everyone on the ship thought she'd had a sick black humor that only came out when someone was in deep pucky. To this day I'm not sure if I qualified or not,” his lips puckered as he said that. Sprite giggled a little and April smiled.

  “What happened to Bligh? Did you ever hear anything?” April asked.

  He shrugged. “He got another tramp freighter and ran a few crappy runs before he was boarded by Xerax pirates. He tried to get the crew to fight, they turned on him and handed him over to the pirates. It didn't help, they all ended up dead anyway.” he sighed.

  “Ouch.”

  “Well, this concludes this portion of the background of Admiral Irons. Tune in for more tomorrow.” April said, looking into the camera and then touching the control on her tablet. The red light winked off and the camera remote bobbed and then settled to the table top gently. “I don't know about you, but I'm thirsty!” she said.

  He chuckled softly, getting up to get them drinks.

  “Your turn,” he said lying next to her later that evening.

  “My turn?” she asked amused. She gave him a lazy smile, relaxing next to him. She had known something like this was coming. He had been laying it all on the line for her, it was time she paid some of it back. Of course her life hadn't been nearly as interesting and exciting as his. She felt a little embarrassed by it.

  “I gave up some of my history, how about yours?” he asked, caressing an arm.

  She laughed softly. “There really isn't much to tell, it's not nearly as lively and thrilling as yours,” she said smiling, eyes twinkling.

  “So? I still want to know,” he said softly.

  “You do?” she asked, eyes surprised.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, then,” she smiled at him.

  “I... My ancestors came to Pyrax in a refugee ship when their home world was evacuated early in the war. They were trying to pass through but a courier ship brought word that the refugee system they had been going to had been torn apart by a nanite virus.”

  He winced at that and then nodded.

  “I heard that if it hadn't been for Admiral Cutlage and rear Admiral Nuguma-so no one would have gotten out of the area. They chased the Xenos out of the sector. Not that there was much left to defend.”

  “Yes. That's true,” he nodded.

  “They, well, they decided to get off at Pyrax and stay away from refugee centers. A few other people joined them. I'm not sure what happened to the ship after that though,” she shrugged.

  “I was there,” he said quietly after a moment. She turned in his arms to stare at him.

  “You....”

  “Oh no, no not at the planet's destruction, I was there for the aftermath. The fleet....” he grimaced. “When he chased the Xenos out, Cultage backstopped his entire compliment of ships in the area to try to get as many civilians off that refugee center as he could. He started with the orbital habs that hadn't been infected. He dumped them on every colony in the area then tried to hyper out more people, stuffing them in every place he could on a ship.”

  “It was bad?”

  “Very. Two week transit time? There is no way to get enough out. Sure a warship has a deep life support ability, we have to since we need the redundancy in case of combat damage, but there is only so much room inside a ship. Running the ships flat out like that without any safety margin...” he looked bleak. “Several ships bough
t it. There was nothing anyone could do. We couldn't find them, they were lost in hyper. We didn't even have the resources to find them. The system's ansible was gone. So we couldn't call for more help.”

  “Oh.”

  “But that's not the worst of it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Remember that Xeno fleet Cutlage chased out? They didn't stop at Pyrax,” he said softly.

  “Oh,” she blinked then paled. “How many other worlds...”

  “Nine,” he said, face bleak once more. “Nine other systems were trashed before they were stopped. Oh sure, they only rock bombed Agnosta and Briev, Triang and Antigua, but Senka was smashed. It had a civilian yard and about a billion people on it,” he looked away. “Yeah, they stopped them on their way out, but even then it was a Pyrrhic victory.”

  “Oh. Who stopped them in the end?”

  “I did.” She looked at him in surprise. “I was setting up another navy base in Bek when we got word from a courier that got to the ansible on Antigua.” She stared at him. “I grabbed every ship I could, civilian, militia, or warship. We cobbled together system defense platforms, graser platforms from parts from the orbital warehouses, and mines from stripped down missile heads. It was enough to tear them apart when they exited hyper,” he said grimly.

  “Oh,” she blinked at him. “What would you have done if you'd been there? On Pyrax I mean.”

  “I would have kept going after them. I would have left my damaged ships and support ships behind and told them to build emergency shelters, quarantined every infected site, nuked them if necessary and instituted strict check ups. Cutlage overlooked that.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was dispatched to lend aide to the Crellis system, that's the system they hit before Pyrax,” he said. “Actually I was backstopping ships and emptying them of cargo there and creating orbital depots before sending them on to Crellis full of food, water, and emergency shelters even before then. The reassignment just made it official.”

  “Oh. that's... I wish they had done that in Pyrax,” she said.

  “We did. later. But the humanitarian effort for so many systems overwhelmed us,” he shook his head grimacing. “Paco was supposed to take the Xeno fleet out. Don't stop, keep fighting until they are pinned down. Keep them from hitting another system.”

  “Ouch,” she winced. “Paco?” she asked.

  “Admiral Cutridge.”

  “Oh.” Her hands stroked his chest and shoulders. Slowly his tension eased. “You stopped them though. In the end,” she said softly.

  “Yeah, after nine systems,” he grimaced. “I was in Bex. It was actually on their way out of the system. They used planet busters where they could then pounded the minor colonies as they passed.”

  “I was wondering why some planets were hardly touched.”

  “Oh they were. Pounded with rocks, nukes, antimatter, or scorched with capital ship beams. “

  “Why? What about nanites? I thought that was what they used before the Nova bomb. Or planet busters? What about them?”

  “They didn't for a simple reason. Because they wanted to come back and use the real estate. The lightly populated worlds offered little resistance so they only used enough resources to reduce them and then moved on. They could come around and suppress their populations before colonizing them later.”

  “But instead they became refugee centers.”

  “For a while. and that too may have been part of their plan. Intel was never sure I think,” he shrugged. She looked at him curiously. “It's easy to see a plan or a plan within a plan, but all the different permutations for different scenarios, all the variables...”

  “It even gives us smart AIs fits. All the variables,” Sprite said.

  “Right,” he nodded. “For instance, what about the systems that they destroyed planets in?”

  "What about them?" she asked curious.

  "Well, it wouldn't take much to set up an automated yard there. They snuck a couple of ships into the area, and dropped off some platforms. The platforms were mostly automated. One built another and so on."

  "What did this do?" she asked.

  "Well, the end result was probably to build more war machines. Some were used as resupply centers. That's actually how we tripped onto the practice. Admiral Quig'lly figured out that a group was going back and forth to one particular system. Once we had an idea we sent out a scout to find out for sure."

  "And they did. And once we knew the Navy sent tin cans out to search out each of these systems and trash anything there," Sprite said with a smile in her voice. "It didn't take much to do it. They had apparently relied too much on secrecy keeping them safe and didn't have any defensive plans in place."

  "Oh."

  "But you stopped them? In the end?" she asked. "The Xenos who blew Pyrax."

  “Yes,” he said. “It took everything we had and then some. I... we swamped the jump point with cheaply built mines, platforms, rocks, anything and everything.”

  “So they walked into it.”

  “Yes. Wave after wave of defenses hammered them. They couldn't stop at first, you can't just stop in space. Newton's laws have to have their day,” he smiled bitterly at that. “They broke off and I sent the mobile forces in to finish the job.”

  “Good,” she whispered, rubbing his back. “Glad they didn’t escape.”

  “Not one. I couldn't do much to undo what they did. Damn little actually, but I was damn well not going to let them get away with what they did. Not again.” His jaw tightened. “Never again,” he whispered, eyes closed.

  “Hey,” she said softly, hand on his arm.

  “Huh?” he looked at her in surprise.

  She smiled. “Worlds away.”

  “More like centuries. Old pain. Best forgotten,” he said softly.

  “Not forgotten. Never that. Just... let it dim.” she said softly, burying herself in his arms. After all, you've got more important things on your mind,” she said with a smile.

  "Yes ma'am," he said with a small chuckle, tightening his grip for a moment.

  “And don't you forget it.”

  Chapter 22

  He looked up in annoyance at the attention whistle from the overhead speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, brace for breakout in ten... nine...”

  Irons ignored the countdown as he looked at the list one more time. He'd got nowhere. Back to square one. The data... Hell. They weren't sure if this was the act of a single individual, a duo, or a team. Some of it was obviously laid out in dock. That he'd have to tell Logan to investigate when he got the chance. Someone, somewhere was a mole.

  “And breakout!” the voice said triumphantly. He snorted as the ship trembled and the hyperdrive powered down. “We are in Briev space ladies and gentlemen! Navigation is checking... Yes we have a nine day journey to the planet. We'll be posting images and updates on channel three later this morning. Have a good day,” the voice said and then the audio closed with a click.

  He did a quick scan through Sprite of the ship's stats and then turned his attention to the suspect list once more. There had to be something there, or not there. Something they were overlooking. He just had to find it.

  April had drawn him out about various things over the past several days, from the convoluted paths to becoming an officer in the military to military families.

  She had been amused when he'd explained the differences between ring knockers, those officers who attended the academy and the college grads and those like him, the mustangs who rose up through the rank and file of enlisted.

  There were benefits and detractions from each of course. Ring knockers were institutionalized from the beginning and had the best education as far as they were concerned. They were also given the most access to tactical training. Many ring knockers had come from military families with a tradition of service. They went to military schools from the moment they were out of diapers.

  On the other hand college grads had some of that as well in the form of ROTC training. They
attended classes in school and then completed the same finishing school the mustangs did to polish them off.

  Mustangs on the other hand experienced the service from the bottom up, rising through the ranks they had a unique perspective on how the military really operated. However they normally had a lot of rough edges and lacked the polish and tactical training that ring knockers took for granted.

  His lips pursed as he thought. She still hadn't made the connections about his family yet. He was of two minds about it. On the one hand he was certainly proud of his ancestors participation in space exploration. They were the first on Mars and had a hand in the designs of the sublight plasma engine and the hyperdrive. The Irons family had spent the past one thousand years as scientists, explorers, engineers, and yes military officers. They had accomplished a lot.

  The real problem was he didn't want to seem like he was bragging about it. But he didn't want to seem ashamed of it either. She'd find out eventually. This search for the assassin was... hmmm. Maybe if he dropped enough hints it would distract her from the hunt? He couldn't stop her from trying to find the assassin but maybe he could pique her interest in other ways?

  Of course before any of that he had to get through this little project. He grimaced a little, hands shifting as he checked things over with a practiced eye.

  "Interesting." He didn't look round at the sound of low voices behind him. Defender was keeping watch for him. He wasn't worried, that guard Chambers had sicked on him was somewhere around, or was supposed to be.

  The guards changed with the shift rotation. He thought the protection detail would be limited to three or four people, but apparently Chambers was running just about everyone through the job. He wasn't sure if that was because no one wanted the shit detail or no one wanted to be anywhere near him.

  Of course it could also be that they didn't want to be following him around all day. He got into the oddest places, doing some of the nastiest jobs on the ship. Not that he minded, they needed to be done. One of his favorite things he loved to emphasize was to lead from the front. In other words don't ask someone to do something you aren't willing to do yourself.